Both professional and amateur athletes often wear athletic gloves when playing sports. In football, for example, wide receivers, tight ends, running backs, and others whose performance depends upon the ability to effectively grip the football often wear gloves to enhance their grip on the football. Other position players, such as offensive and defensive lineman, may wear gloves to protect their hands during play.
Athletic gloves are often subjected to a substantial amount of stress when worn in football and other sports. Athletes repeatedly open, close, stretch, and constrict their hands while catching, throwing, grabbing, pushing, and pulling as required on the field. Athletic gloves often fail as a result of this stress. One frequent area of failure is between adjacent fingers where the fingers join the hand. Additionally, conventional athletic gloves often restrict an athlete's range of hand motion beyond desirable levels.